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Languages and Linguistics
Syntax

Quantification of NPs/DPs in Russian

Profile image of Peter KostaPeter Kosta

Abstract

A central problem for the analysis of quantified (numeral) expressions in Russian concerns the case and number assignment and agreement. In his book 'Parameters of Slavic Morphosyntax' (N.Y. Oxford 1995), Steven Franks mentions the following problems: "Numeral phrases display many unusual and mysterious morphosyntactic properties, among which are that (a) the numeral phrase sometimes govems the nominal material following it and sometimes agrees in case with it, and (b) the numeral phrase sometimes induces subject-verb agreement and sometimes does not. This contrast between (a) homogenous and (b) hererogenous NPs/DPs (Babby 1987) itself is not difficult to formulate but it is very difficult to demonstrate that the range of variation encountered follows from general principles of the Minimalist theory. This article tries to refine the analysis of "heterogeneous" vs. "homogenous" morphosyntax of numeral expressions making use of recent syntactic developments of the Minimalist program (Chomsky 1995, 2001), namely the emergence of the case-assigning mechanism AGREE. The key insight is taken from Gilbert Rappaport's approach on case assignment (2002), refined and enriched by the mechanism of interpretability/uninterpretability and valuation of features from recent studies on the Syntax of Valuation (val) and the interpretability/unintrepretabilty of Features developed by David Pesetsky and Esther Torrego (2001, 2006). Esther Torrego, UMass/Boston (2004)1.

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